Agency row prompts U.S. footall strike

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 40

Agency row prompts U.S. footall strike

by

TOM BRIDGMAN

I NZPA correspondent I Washington 1 American football players, I whose average salary is | $U5230,000 ($372,600) a year, I have gone on strike. I The National Football I League (N.F.L.) player’s I union, which represents 1500 | players, announced the strike I yesterday. I The main issue in the I simmering dispute is over what is called free agency, the ability of players to change teams if they wish after their contracts expire. If a club wishes to retain rights to a player at that point, it must send him a qualifying offer. The player is free in the meantime to receive offers from other I clubs and the old club can decide to match the offer or receive compensation from his new club. Under this current arrangement about 2000 players have qualified to switch teams in the last 10 seasons, but only one has been able to sign with a new club. Smaller clubs say they would not be able to compete in any salary war that broke out if the players had unrestricted free agency. But Gene Upshaw, executive director of the N.F.L. Players Association, said yesterday "free agency was about freedom, it is about being able to move.” The strike, coming just two weeks into the beginning of the American football season, is the union’s second since 1982, when it walked out for 57 days causing seven games to be cancelled. Team managements have vowed to continue the season on October 4 with teams made up of substitute players

who had previously beea re-' leased by clubs and uv, players who refuse to mm strike, but it will mean ntoay of the big names of the Mae will be missing. ./ Tex Schramm, the Dalias COwboys games piMtoent said his strike team waa already complete while toe Detrolt Lions said they had 39 players available.Games scheduled for Sunday and Monday have been delayed until after the regular season. Players in American football, highlights of which are scheduled to be Mown on New Zealand television on Saturday evenings, can make big money from the h Hiking game. • • In the present system new players, or "rookies," get a minimum of $Bl,OOO. While the N.FX. average is $372,600, top players, can get In excess of $1,296,000. The union has proposed a $145,800 minimum for rookies rising to a $518,400 mini, mum for a 13-year player, while the managements are proposing $97,200 for rookies as part of a wage scale tor draft picks, toe top new players chosen for each season. <■ Television has provided toe impetus for toe big salaries, each club earning about SUSI 7 million ($27.54 million) a season from toe medium for a full season of games. The tree-agency dispute has also affected baseball where concidentaliy on Tuesday an arbitrator came down on toe side of toe players against toe clubs, ruling toe latter had acted in concert after toe 1985 season to block toe movement of free-agerit < players. -